2:53 am
by Ann Kathrynn
Summary: It’s nice, sometimes, to be noticed. And George, for all his charm and smiles, doesn't notice her. Not the way she wants him to. Mark/Lexie oneshot


Disclaimer: They're not mine, I'm just playing with them

I've actually just started to watch this show, so I'm in the process of playing catch up, but I have to say I love it, and already I'm falling in love with Mark and Lexie, both separately and as a potential thing on the show. So, I figured, why not give it a shot, and after last weeks episode (5x04 Brave New World) this kind of just popped into my head. Any feedback is really greatly appreciated, because at this point, I'm not sure what the hell I'm doing, so let me know what you think! ;)

* * *

What had started as a drink at Joe's had somehow evolved into something else completely, and now, at 2:53 in the morning –she knows because she's been staring at his bedside clock for the past forty-two minutes and counting, (not really) trying to forget how his hands felt running up and down her sides– Lexie's not quite sure what that means.

She's been trying to figure it out, too, but her mind is a traitorous _thing_ that she apparently has no control over, although if she's being honest, the images that keep floating lazily through her head are not at all unpleasant. Quite the opposite, actually. So it's really not her fault she keeps getting distracted.

Besides, it's _nice_, the attention; because even though she doesn't feel the constant need to be the center of everyone's attention (at least, God, she hopes she doesn't, and that one time after her prom shouldn't count if she can't remember it, should it?), it's nice, sometimes, to be noticed. And George, for all his charm and smiles and late nights when they pretend to watch a television they don't own, doesn't notice her. Not like she wants him to.

She doubts he even noticed tonight, when she didn't join him at his table, when she sat in her own little corner nursing her beer. Even Joe shot her a few funny glances every now and then, and maybe it's just her imagination (and it is, she knows it is) but after a few drinks she sure that even _Joe_ can tell, and maybe Sloan's right, maybe she really is just pathetic. Which, as it turns out, is not such a comforting thought. Normally she would talk to her best friend about this kind of stuff –this thought prompts flashbacks to sleepovers on their ratty couch, laughing and laying out roach traps, and that lightens her mood, if only for the smallest of seconds– but this time, her best friend is the same guy she's pining over, so somehow she's pretty sure that option is out. Plus, he's pretty busy celebrating with Meredith (and it's not like Lexie's welcome to confide in _her_; sharing DNA and sharing something like this are two separate things, and she's really trying to respect that), and Izzie (which is a whole other issue, her and George, and Lexie cannot and will not go there), and Christina (and who knew they were so close, anyways?).

That's how he found her, sitting and sulking in a corner like some fourth-grader with her stupid fourth-grade crush (except they're both adults and she's old enough to know this is bigger, this is _more_ than that) and thinking how, really, the only person little, lonely Grey number two has to talk to these days is big, bad Mark Sloan. And all of a sudden, there he was, two beers in his hand ('his and hers' Bud Lights, how quaint), and a really wolfish smirk, like he knows exactly what she's thinking. He probably does. She took one of the drinks, and that was that.

He hadn't called her pathetic, which was a surprise to her, but she guesses she'd known already there had to be limits, even with Sloan. He just sat himself down (uninvited, but he'd known he was welcomed), and rattled off a list of everything wrong with "that idiot O'Malley", including that "kicked puppy face he gets when something goes wrong" (along with several other faults he just completely made up on the spot, but it got her laughing, which was a first since she'd walked into the place, and made her forget that she sort of _liked_ George's puppy face).

But she likes this, too. He's still snarky and kind of mean (but everyone knows someone like that, right?) and says things he probably shouldn't, but he's looking at her now like George never has. Like he's seeing her sitting there and he knows what to do about it. Like a man is supposed to look at a woman, every now and then. His eyes never left hers, either, when after a good hour of sitting and bitching about George for her (what a gentleman) so she didn't have to –although now she thinks she could– he threw some bills on the table, caught her hand and led her towards the door. His palm was warm and his gaze confident, and really, in that moment, that was all Lexie needed to know.

She remembers half-hoping, half-dreading that George saw her leaving with Sloan, though, and she wonders what kind of person that makes her. That was the last time she thought of George until now.

She'll give Mark this; every rumor she heard, every whispered confession in the locker rooms or at the nurses' station, everything she'd heard about him, about _this, _was true. He was…_fantastic; _commanding, and attentive and almost considerate. And when they were done, he rolled off of her smirking, not smiling, and skimmed his fingers along her collarbone. "Still thinking of O'Malley?" he'd asked, and she'd looked up at him through half-lidded eyes (how _could_ she be thinking of George at a time like this, her body still tingling from where he'd touched her) but just because she wondered what he'd say, she answered:

"Yup."

There was a moment where she thought she'd wounded his pride or something (but then again, she was just a lowly intern and this was nothing new, she was sure, for him, and tomorrow night would be the same thing with a different girl, so why would it matter) but then she felt the corner of her mouth tuck up into a little smirk to match his, and the spark was back in his eyes. "I can fix that" (he all but growled), already moving back towards her and she was more than ready for round two.

So now she's ended up here, with the weight of Mark's arm on her abdomen, his fingers tickling her sides when she moves. It is 2:53 in the morning, and Lexie Grey, she thinks, is now officially another notch on his bedpost, and (while it probably should be), it's not something she's sure she's sorry for.

* * *


End file.
